It is Christian Lindner’s achievement to have brought the FDP back into the Bundestag in the second half of the last decade and finally back into government responsibility in December 2021. Within the traffic light coalition, however, the Liberals are increasingly becoming a stirrup for ideologically motivated advances from their coalition partners.
The problem for the party is less Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his SPD than Robert Habeck and the Greens, because the Minister of Economic Affairs pursues a policy that is no longer interested in essential aspects of successful economic activity. Location comparisons, questions of profitability and the amount of debt are of no interest because in the end, for Robert Habeck, companies are not bankrupt, they just stop working for a short time.
However, among the FDP voters in particular there are many craftsmen, self-employed people and entrepreneurs who know that this wishful thinking has very little to do with reality. They know only too well that it is tantamount to economic suicide not to deal with these questions or to do so insufficiently.
What weighs worse? To have concocted the nonsense or to have waved it through?
The traffic light coalition has been in power for just over two years now. Since then, the German economy has experienced a rapid decline and the liberals in particular are rightly confronted with the accusation of not only supporting this form of economic self-mutilation, but also making it possible in the first place, because without the votes of the FDP, the Greens and SPD would not have their ideological dreams can shape into new laws.
The FDP leadership is therefore confronted with a “sin register” that is getting longer and longer and at the same time is becoming increasingly difficult to convey to its own voters. The shutdown of the last nuclear power plants began in 2022/23. Contrary to economic reason, the FDP decided to follow the Greens and switch off six percent of Germany’s electricity generation virtually overnight and without replacement.
Because it’s so nice, the mistake will now be made a second time when phasing out coal. The 58 active German coal-fired power plants should be taken offline by 2030. After that, Germany is completely at the mercy of the whims of sun and wind.
The gap is to be closed by building new gas power plants, i.e. a new fossil energy cycle. However, the idea is so absurd that the German energy industry has already rejected it. She is only willing to go along with this nonsense if the taxpayer covers the expected additional costs. Finance Minister Christian Lindner has already approved the necessary funds.